Tag: Mood Stabilizers
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Writer’s Block Nearly Killed Me
I had a two decade-long writer’s block and didn’t know it – until it tried to kill me. It nearly did. We’re talking literal inches between me and a city bus moving at speed, trying to make a light. This was three days before Christmas 2016. My writer’s block had long since metastasized into a…
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Depression Is Like “Thought Cancer”
Slowly — too slowly — our culture is beginning to understand that depression isn’t just one person feeling blue because their life sucks. It’s a health issue with causes and effects that can be treated and ameliorated. The human brain is, by far, the most complex, complicated organ in our bodies. It’s also the organ…
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Anthony Bourdain’s Passing – Three Years Ago Today – Reminds Us How Important Our Mental Health Is
Three days before Christmas 2016, I came within literal inches of killing myself. I was at the deepest point in a decade-long depression. I got lucky in the aftermath. I got well. But, even as I finally got my depression under control — the mood stabilizer I take moderates my emotions which allowed me to…
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Alcohol On Airplanes Was NEVER A Good Idea Actually; Now, Cannabis, On The Other Hand…
On May 29, American Airlines joined Southwest Airlines in suspending alcohol sales on their aircraft. Southwest did it because its passengers were becoming increasingly abusive over mask issues and when those abusive passengers started drinking… . We live in alcohol culture’s thrall the same way we used to live in Big Tobacco’s thrall. It wasn’t…
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Why Do I Call This Blog What I Call It? Because Bullsh*t Nearly Killed Me, That’s Why!
Devout atheist that I am, I consider myself “born again’. I have seen with my own eyes the havoc bullshit can cause in both my daily life and over the whole length of it. I bear witness to bullshit’s remarkable power to convince us that it is truth and truth is bullshit. Actually, bullshit’s much…
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Alcohol + A Pandemic = Terrible Decision-Making
I stopped drinking alcohol just over four years ago. I didn’t “have to” per se, but the mood stabilizer I started taking gives all alcohol a grapefruit skin-like aftertaste making it completely unpalatable. Given a choice between drinking and not being depressed, I’ll take the latter, thanks. And anyway — it’s not like consuming alcohol…
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In Cannabis Veritas
In vino veritas is how the original goes: in wine there is truth. Actually, the original original goes in libris veritas: in books there is truth. Books has it right. Wine… not so much. Oh, the occasional drunk may spew out how they really feel about you or the world in that instant, but the…
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What Being Deeply Depressed Taught Me About Life — And Being Happy
Three days before Christmas 2016, I came within literal inches of harming myself, perhaps fatally. It was pure impulse — a flash of self-directed anger that I’d been building toward for a decade. Oh, the irony… even as I plotted to off myself, I didn’t know (or admit to myself) WHY I felt this terrible…
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Since I Stopped Drinking Alcohol, I’ve Come To See Clearly — America Has A Problem With Alcohol
Want to know if Americans drink too much alcohol? Quit drinking for a day. Better yet a week — or a month. Better yet, quit drinking entirely. I wasn’t forced to quit drinking by the mood stabilizer that saved my life. Alcohol can increase the intensity of any side effects the lamictil causes but, by…
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Notes From A Former Drinker — Drinking Culture Is Really, Really, REALLY Stupid
Perspective is the damnedest thing. For the overwhelming majority of my adult life, I was a drinker. I never thought of myself as an alcoholic though I drank at least 2 glasses of wine every day. Religiously. I prided myself on making not merely a good martini but a great one (I still do as…